As Mike Smith continued to rack up wins with the Atlanta Falcons, he joined select company. Coming off the team's second 13-3 season in three years, Smith was voted Sporting News NFL Coach of the Year for 2012. He also won the award in 2008 and 2010.

Among active coaches, Smith is the third multiple winner, along with the New Orleans Saints' Sean Payton and New England Patriots' Bill Belichick. In the long history of the SN award dating to 1947, Smith's three overall awards match greats Paul Brown, Chuck Knox and Joe Gibbs. Only Don Shula has won four.

Smith was recognized by his peers. Sporting News received votes from a pool of 27 NFL coaches and executives to determine the winner. In a tight race, Smith (8) finished ahead of the Indianapolis Colts' tag team of Bruce Arians and Chuck Pagano (7), the Houston Texans' Gary Kubiak (6), John Fox (2) of the Denver Broncos and the Seattle Seahawks' Pete Carroll (2).

Through his five regular seasons in Atlanta, the Falcons have never finished worse than 9-7 and are a most impressive 56-24 overall. This season, the Falcons broke through to give Smith his first playoff victory, and the team fell a game short of getting to Super Bowl XLVII.

A day after a 28-24 NFC championship game loss to the San Francisco 49ers, Smith made it clear the Falcons have just scratched the surface with their success.

"It was not our goal this year just to win a playoff game," Smith said. "Our expectations are a lot higher than that."

The Falcons strengthened their standing as an NFC power after Smith made two key changes to his coaching staff. Offensive coordinator Dirk Koetter brought an up-tempo passing game that led to quarterback Matt Ryan's best season. Defensive coordinator Mike Nolan installed creative scheming to raise his unit's big-play quotient. The team also went 8-3 in games decided by seven or fewer points.

Smith and general manager Thomas Dimitroff showed a keen eye for improving the Falcons since they came to Atlanta together in 2008. Expect the personnel to be upgraded again as they look to reach the Super Bowl.

"It was a very good learning experience this entire season for us as a football team, as a coaching staff," Smith said. "It allows us to take some of the good and some of the bad that took place this season, work on it in the offseason and prepare ourselves for another season."

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About the awards

Sporting News polled more than 800 NFL players, coaches and executives for our 2012 awards. Everyone voted for offensive and defensive player of the year, rookie of the year and comeback player of the year. Only coaches and executives voted for coach of the year, coordinator of the year, executive of the year and SN’s All-Pro team.